FORMATION NOTES: A lot of this kind of stuff.

Probably 50/50 between this and gun with more gun coming late as Michigan tried to make it look like they were trying to come back without actually doing so.

SUBSTITUTION NOTES: Everything as per usual, with the exception of Morris's late insertion and maybe a little more playing time for Jake Butt.

AGAIN APOLOGIES: Audio on the clips is messed up this week.

[After THE JUMP: a portal to another universe where Michigan doesn't suck (I DID IT FOR THE CLIIIIIIIIIICKS)]

I'd ask you why you did this but I think I've asked you that twice in the last few months already.

My best answer is that all of life is meaningless and I may as well drudge at this since I know how to drudge it?

But maybe there are nice things.

Shhh.

Shhh.

I am concerned for your mental health.

You know as well as I, bolded alter-ego, that doomy doom about life being awful is an attempt at gallows humor and considerably played up from real life, which is rather nice for me.

All right, then let's get on with it. What went wrong other than everything?

Everything.

I mean other than everything.

Oh, I heard you. But this was a holistic breakdown. Even the shining beacon of football on the offense had his moments of lolwut: Devin Funchess not only tried that one-handed stab of a meh ball that ended up intercepted in the first half, he also sabotaged that Norfleet bubble screen spectacularly.

Not a finger on that dude, and with Utah badly aligned and two guys fighting to that inside gap, even a mediocre block may spring Norfleet for a touchdown. You can tell Funchess is a generationally great receiver because he has some diva in him.

Earlier in the year I was saying maybe these mental issues will get fixed and then we might be good; we're only four games in but that seems impossible right now. Michigan is a disorganized, unaccountable mess aside from the defense.

And then there's the elephant in the room: wrecking quarterbacks. Funchess turned in his usual quota of I be like dang; the obvious, depressing, miserable problem was Devin Gardner breaking in front of our eyes. In context this was the worst game of his career, and it doesn't seem close.

…

?

Chart.

Chart.

Devin Gardner 2013

Devin Gardner

It wasn't all bad but things like beautifully lofted balls to Funchess while under duress were very much the exception. It was a lot of balls that were just miles off, like this third down and fifteen that was wide open:

Yeesh. That window was there. And also it's Funchess arm punt and give your guy a chance. Don't leave it ten yards short.

And that wasn't even the least accurate throw. That has to be Gardner finding AJ Williams wide open 50 yards downfield and throwing it about 30, making it seem like Jehu Chesson was the target when he certainly was not.

I mean…

…this is a broken QB.

MLive's Nick Baumgardner, amongst others, speculated that Gardner's throws were so bad that the most obvious explanation was that he was hurt, and honestly wouldn't be surprised. We'll find out after the season when people are pleading for Hoke's job.

So… that's bad. I have no further analysis other than it is bad when your QB looks like a malfunctioning t-shirt cannon.

PUT IN MORRIS.

Well, he got in. A full dossier of Morris activity even after I stopped charting:

MEH

• Two four yard passes, dumpoff to Justice Hayes
• QB sneak
• Attempted RB flat batted down
• Throws ball wildly into middle of field when pressured

GOOD

• Scramble on third and seven for first down
• Third down conversion on dig laser
• 65 yard ball to Norfleet that DBs rake out

BAD

• Slant turfed at Funchess's feet
• Sack he caused by fleeing good pocket
• Wildly overthrown interception
• Comeback route way upfield of his receiver that is almost intercepted
• Overthrown fade route
• Fumbles on dubious decision to scramble
• Holds the ball a thousand years, should be safetied, throws 70 yard pass way past receiver.

I did chart his passes, and there results are no better:

Shane Morris

He was probably worse than Gardner and that is a high mountain to scale. If this is the savior, it's time to start looking at coaching resumes. Maybe he'll get better this weekend; he seems so far away from what Michigan's rickety offense needs to score 20 points that either this defense is MSU 2013 level or Michigan goes 7-5 at best.

RUN THE DANG BALL.

I guess we could try, but…

…the run game was just as bad.

If that seems harsh given higher grades against Notre Dame, excise a 13-yard gain on one of those edge pitches that involves no blocking at all and Michigan averaged 3.2 yards a carry, with 35 of those on 3 early pin and pull zones and another 12 on a power play that Green randomly cut to the backside and got lucky on. When they tried to run anything other than a pin and pull their got more than three yards twice.

This isn't as disappointing as the QB situation because we were braced for something mediocre at best preseason, but this was by far their worst performance of the year.

Running back ugh again?

Yes. Michigan incorporated those Wisconsin fly sweeps on a number of plays early; Derrick Green seemed to have no idea what those might be trying to accomplish. On the first one he cuts away from a backside hole that the sweep action is attempting to induce and eats an unblocked corner:

If you're cutting away from the hole the play you're running is likely to produce you'd better be doing so to make a play. A couple years back I used to complain that the linebackers didn't seem to understand that if the line is slanting left the back is likely to cut back right, and therefore they got blocked by guys who should be swiping at air. Green feels exactly like that. He doesn't have any idea where the hole is likely to be, and cuts randomly.

Even on power plays that have a defined hole he doesn't seem to know what he's doing. Here he does the opposite of set up a block, deciding to go straight upfield before Khalid Hill even contacts the linebacker he's pulling to.

The way this works is you wait for contact to be made and then pick the side the guy isn't on.

I even disliked the one big run he had, because that was power that he cut all the way to the backside on. He has no intention of even looking to see if the corner is open and only gets his cutback away from an unblocked linebacker because one of the Utah defensive tackles plays it as bad as you possibly can.

A grudging plus there because there is no damn way that Green thought "this DT is probably going to try a comically slow spin move and vacate a gap away from this unblocked guy I'm running at currently." Results-based charting is what it is.

It's perhaps telling that Green had his most consistent success running pin and pull plays on which the answer for the tailback is always "run outside until the kickout block." It doesn't require much vision.

What about Smith?

I don't have much more faith in him. He had limited opportunities in this game for a reason. Here's a zone stretch on which Cole gets a fantastic, lethal seal on the playside DT that sets up a run that is headed for a first down and more. Which side of the block does Smith go on?

You have got to be kidding me. That just set 20 yards on fire. Can we at least try Justice Hayes? Not that I'm expecting much since Justice Hayes has the same coach.

You seem really mean about AJ Williams all the time.

I know. I know. I really don't want to keep harping on it, because I feel bad about calling Nick Sheridan DEATH right before he beat Minnesota. Sometimes guys just find themselves out of their depth but just kept being put on the field, and it gets really frustrating.

That is very much the case here. Every week I find a bunch of plays on which AJ Williams is unable to do easy stuff I saw Mike Kwiatkowski consistently execute when Williams was a sophomore and Kwiatkowksi the walk-on senior. On this successful pin and pull he almost gets it blown up by comprehensively losing what should be a simple block:

Or here, where he doesn't realize a slant from the line means the end is Braden's, gets confused, whiffs, lunges, and then gets run over by a linebacker:

That thing where a guy 30 pounds lighter than Williams rocks him back with one hand and then disconnects to tackle is so common it feels like a trademark.

This was bad enough when Williams was a true freshman thrust on the field; as a junior it is intolerable. Michigan has played a blocking tight end who can't block for going on three solid years. That even more than the quarterback stuff will stand as a ringing condemnation of Hoke's ability to see what he has on offense and adapt to it.

Meanwhile, Dan Ferrigno is in charge of the tight ends and special teams. May want to leave a blank spot on the ol' resume when it comes to the next job.

But it's not just all the peripheral people, right?

No. Michigan's tackle issues came to the forefront in this game, with multiple pressures and run plays blown up as Michigan struggled against Utah's motion. This early power play is instructive, as Braden and Glasgow draw identical assignments. They're supposed to down-block a defensive end slanting away from the play:

Glasgow remains upright, balanced over his center of gravity; Braden lunges, gets off balance, lurches upfield, and his guy goes right by. (To be fair to Braden, the slant was harder for him since the guy went from outside to inside instead of just further inside. Still, watch the relative balance of the two OL and feel the technique leaking into your brain because Braden's got issues obvious even to you and I.)

Michigan had some trouble on the backside of this play but given a kickout block and a potential gap to the frontside, Smith may have an avenue, but Braden gives ground and doesn't even kick out, which is so easy and common I barely notice it when it happens successfully. (This is a reason tackle run block numbers are low.)

Braden failed to ID a stunt on one of Utah's sacks; he had a rough, rough game. This was always going to happen, because both tackles are freshmen. I do want to see some narrative of improvement here; I think bumping Glasgow out to RT and playing Kalis is now in play. Not immediately, but if this continues another few weeks.

Not that the rest of the OL were blameless. There are frequent oh-crap blocks when stunts and slants happen; sometimes you need to check before you release to the second level. That kind of stuff I expect, because inside zone is hard and they are young and learning. I did not expect them to look so bad against a team that doesn't have a lot of horses.

That is a huge, Borges-like negative RPS number.

Utah didn't get got by anything Michigan tried. Was there ever a play where Michigan popped a guy open or had anything that was easy? A pin and pull or two, and then Utah adjusted.

Then the negatives.

Ah, the waggle: my least favorite thing about 1997 Michigan. The 8-bit Nintendo of constraint plays, the waggle frequently sees the quarterback turn around only to have a defensive end ready to spear him in the chest. Ask John Navarre. Ask Denard Robinson. This is never more likely than second and sixteen with a wonky running game:

Cool play action bro.

I get that by this point Nussmeier is grabbing anything vaguely sauce-like and throwing it in the pot in case that fixes it, but every time this team runs a waggle on a passing down the above is a best-case scenario.

If I was ever hiring an offensive coordinator "has offense that does not require the f-ing waggle" would be #1 on my list of priorities. Look towards the guys trying to murder you 100% of the time, that's my motto.

The play after that Michigan ran a power play on third and sixteen, presumably with the intent to go for it after picking up half or more. They ran this power to the side of the line where Utah had shifted its DL and had both linebackers stacked over each other. They did not get yards.

Running play action on passing downs always frustrates the casual fan, and they're not wrong. Here Michigan's trying to sell a guard pull on second and seventeen; Cole sets up like he's trying to wall a guy off on the backside of a power play only for that guy to run straight at the QB because it's second and seventeen.

Even so I'm surprised that the numbers came out that negative. There is a snowball effect here: when you can't do anything right teams tee off on the things that look vaguely threatening. So when you cannot get more than three yards on any run inside the tackles you start looking dumber than you are.

Second and forever play action, though… I thought we fired that guy.

Receivers?

I still have no drops on routine balls for anyone except Keith Heitzman.

ROUTES: HIll –1, Chesson –1.

It's bad when you have that many 1s.

Heroes?

Funchess, despite the errors. He was basically the only offense.

Maybe not so heroic?

Just about literally everyone else.

What does it mean for Minnesota and the future?

I'm not expecting Morris to ride in on a white horse. Going to be ugly.

Stop playing so many TEs. /shouts into black hole

Braden is the wobbliest OL. Having issues in both pass pro and against the run.

Tailbacks have no idea how to run the plays. I miss Mike Hart.

WELP. Welp.